KZn Midlands ride: Nagle Dam, karkloof and Muden

[JonW]

So I have been going on a bit recently to my riding mates about the awesome food served up by Uncle Bucks Tavern in Muden, resulting in them asking me to put together a ride ending up in Muden so that all of us can get out on the bikes for a day and enjoy a great meal afterwards.

After combining some of my existing well ridden tracks with others that I found on Google Earth I came up with a route that I thought would be fun and also manageable by those on their big 1000cc plus machines.

Now I never take a group riding on tracks that I haven't ridden myself, so I asked my old mate Kevin aka Outhere to come test the route with me, which he happily agreed to, with his wife Sarah on the back of his 1200. I figured if Kevin could do the route on his 1200 with a pillion, then it should be suitable for a group ride.

Some pics of the recce from last weekend:

 

[JonW]

The route was perfect, a nice mix of forrestry roads, tweespoor and rocky tracks that would get us to our lunch destination by 13h30.

the plan was for the Durban based riders to leave from the Polo Pony Hotel in Hillcrest and we would leave from Pmb and meet up at the bridge over the Umgeni just below Nagle Dam. It sounded like we were going to have quite a nice size group, in the end 20 bikes turned up for the ride.

The meeting places:

 

[JonW]

From experience I know it's quite difficult to get a big group like this to stick to any sort of time schedule, and we had quite a long ride ahead of us, and Reece from Uncle Bucks had chickens and rump in his smoker that would be ready for us at 13h30, so we couldn't dawdle too much. So after a few minutes of socializing chatting I said let's get going, waited a minute, started my bike and pulled out. I think after realizing I am serious, the rest stopped their conversations, jumped on their bikes and followed me.

First stop was a dirt track up to the top of the mountain overlooking Nagle Dam that I had found quite a few years ago, but hadn't been back to in a while.

An awesome spot.

Even my Dog ugly old KTM looks quite pretty in this setting  :biggrin:

 

[JonW]

Great views over Nagle Dam

 

[JonW]

After about 20 minutes of chatting, smoking and socializing I decided we had better get going. We then headed akong a series of tracks, and farm roads towards Wartburg where we stopped for fuel. From there headed to New Hanover and then into the Karkloof, where a series of paths, roads and firebreaks took us to this beautiful lake hidden away in the middle of the Karkloof plantations, where we had our next break.

 

[JonW]

After some nice slippery climbs and descents the bank of the dam proved a perfect spot to catch our breath and have a drink and something to eat.

 

[777]

Must join you sometime, but not sure if must use 800 or 500?

 

[JonW]

Must join you sometime, but not sure if must use 800 or 500?

For this ride the 800 would have been fine, for my normal rides the 500 more suited  :ricky:

If you keen, pm me your cell number and I'll add you to our Whattsapp group where we organize local rides

 

[JonW]

And so after relaxing in the sun next the lake for about half an hour it was time to get cracking.

The next section was more forestry tracks, including some nice steep, loose climbs.

 

[JonW]

From there we left the Karkloof plantations and headed into the arid bushveld, to one of my favorite riding tracks that goes through the Mhlopeni wildlife conservancy and finishes up in the little town of Muden.

Some great rocky riding to be had here

 

[JonW]

More at Mhlopeni

 

[JonW]

And a well deserved stop along the way, was getting quite hot at this stage

 

[JonW]

And finally we pulled into Uncle Bucks in Muden where the beers were ice cold and the roast chicken and rump had been in the smoker for the past few hours and were just about done to perfection.

 

[Sheepman]

Very cool trip Jon  :thumleft:

 

[BIGMAC]

Nice one JonW - i recognize some of those routes

 

[ABruigom]

Awesome JonW, I'll be moving back to the midlands end of the month and definitely will be keen to part take in rides like these.

Sent from my ELE-L29 using Tapatalk

 

[JonW]

Very cool trip Jon  :thumleft:

Thanks  :thumleft: was a really nice ride

 

[JonW]

Nice one JonW - i recognize some of those routes

Thanks Blake, time for you to come riding again

 

[JonW]

Awesome JonW, I'll be moving back to the midlands end of the month and definitely will be keen to part take in rides like these.

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Hi Ashley

Give us a shout when you arrive, there's a group of us who ride most weekends

 

[Been]

Nice RR Jon, sorry I missed this one, I'll be back soon, once my knee is stronger. :thumleft: